DE PALMA NO LONGER ATTACHED TO 'KEY MAN'
According to a Variety article posted yesterday, Brian De Palma is no longer attached to The Key Man. The project, with a screenplay written by Joby Harold, had originally been announced almost a year ago, and projected to start shooting by the end of 2011. When that didn't happen, De Palma quickly got things rolling on Passion, which is now headed to the festival season. According to the Variety article, Open Road Films is currently in talks with Oskar Thor Axelsson to direct The Key Man. The article provides a new bit of detail about the main character, a single father who is also a puzzle editor (that latter bit is the new detail), targeted by government agents because his body holds clues to national secrets.

NEW 'OBSESSION' DVDREGION 2 DVD & BLU-RAY RELEASED IN FRANCE LAST MONTHWild Side Video released new region 2 DVD and Blu-Ray editions of Brian De Palma's Obsession last month in France. Both editions feature a remastered version of Obsession, with new special features, including a brief interview with De Palma, presented as part of a 26-minute video essay by Samuel Blumenfeld, coauthor of Brian De Palma: Conversations with Samuel Blumenfeld and Laurent Vachaud. (According to the Principal Archivist at the Swan Archives, the De Palma interview appears to be from 2004, perhaps from the same interview De Palma did for the French Sisters DVD that was released around that time-- see comments section below.) The DVD edition of Obsession is a two-disc set that includes a PDF of Paul Schrader's original screenplay (not included in the Blu-Ray package, according to Amazon). Both editions include two bonus De Palma shorts: Woton's Wake and The Responsive Eye. They also include Laurent Bouzereau's "Obsession Revisited," as well as a trailer for the film.

Longtime reader screenfreekz has sent in a tentatively translated (from French, after it had already been translated from English) quote from the De Palma interview: ""People don't understand Hitchcock. I'd love to be in a room with my detractors so I could prove them wrong whenever they compare me to him."(Thanks to screenfreekz!)

DE PALMA TALKS TURKEYSFORMER STUDENT SAYS DE PALMA "CONSTANTLY REFERRED TO ALL HIS FILMS AS TURKEYS"The Oregonian News Network posted an interview with Anne Richardson, who runs the blog Oregon Movies, A to Z. Richardson indicates in the interview that she is a former student of Brian De Palma. It seems most likely that she would have been involved in the class De Palma taught at Sarah Lawrence College in 1979, where he taught students how to make a film by making Home Movies with them. In the Oregonian interview, Richardson is asked to tell her favorite story about the movies. "At film school," Richardson replies, "Prof. Brian De Palma constantly referred to all his films as 'turkeys'. When I was making my thesis film, I called him up to ask for advice on one particular shot. I was hugely honored when, as he was answering my question, he began referring to my film as a turkey."

'PASSION' TO PREMIERE AT VENICE SEPT 7THRUNNING TIME NOW LISTED AT 100 MINUTESThanks to Rachel McAdams Online for discovering that the screenings schedule has now been posted at the website of the 69th Venice International Film Festival, which runs from August 29th through September 8th. While Terrence Malick's To The Wonder will premiere on Sunday, September 2nd, Brian De Palma's Passion will premiere on Friday, September 7th, one day before the end of the festival. This makes De Palma's film one of the final big premieres of the festival, and also separates the two Rachel McAdams films by five days. While there is no official word yet on which actors will appear at the festival, it would be fun to see McAdams attend both premieres. When the festival films were first announced, the running time for Passion was listed at 94 minutes. The new listing shows the film running 100 minutes.

'FEMME FATALE' CLIMAX MAY HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY SAUTETARMOND WHITE SAYS NO DOUBT ABOUT INFLUENCE OF STUNNING MONTAGE IN 'THE THINGS OF LIFE'Armond White, writing about the current Claude Sautet retrospective at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, says that "a stunning montage" in Sautet's Les Choses de la Vie (The Things Of Life) "no doubt inspired Brian De Palma’s Femme Fatale climax." Sautet's film, released in 1970, established his international reputation. White states that it is "a more operatic version of the usual Sautet melodrama." According to White, "The montage details life in shocking, lyrical increments. Jean Boffety’s cinematography captures natural light and existential tragedy in captivating, musical counterpoint. Sautet may be practiced in face-to-face contretemps but the car crash sequence–a Nouvelle Vague salute to the crisis/memories/fate flashbacks of Hollywood’s classic Slattery’s Hurricane–is one of cinema’s most exquisite examples of melding kinetics to philosophy."

The Saute retrospective, running through August 16, is named after The Things Of Life, and includes that film along with 12 other Sautet features.

'PASSION' ON COVER OF FILM TV MAGAZINEAS ITALIAN PUBLICATION PREVIEWS UPCOMING VENICE FILM FESTIVALReader Maurizio Rossi sends word of the new issue of the Italian magazine Film Tv, which features an image from Brian De Palma's Passion on the cover. Rossi explains that the cover's accompanying headline is a play on the Italian title of Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now. The Italian title for Roeg's film is A Venezia un Dicembre rosso shocking, which translates to "A Shocking Red December In Venice," according to Rossi. So the magazine's headline, "A Venezia una Mostra Rosso Passion," translates to "A Red Passion Film Festival in Venice." The issue previews the upcoming Venice Film Festival.